April 23, 2012 4:27pm EDTApril 23, 2012 3:28pm EDTBCS meetings will be held this week in Fort Lauderdale. Those in attendance could send the university presidents a playoff plan, and a four-team system is believed to be favored.

A straight four-team, three-game playoff has become the college football postseason plan of choice, a BCS source told Sporting News on Monday. The next step: Come up with a working plan during this week’s BCS meetings in Fort Lauderdale to send to university presidents for approval.

“The object is to make this as simple as possible to understand,” said one BCS source.

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Translation: Forget about the Rose Bowl Plan, an idea sources says was floated by Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott. Under the complicated plan—called “Four Teams Plus” according to a document obtained earlier this month by USA Today—the Big Ten and Pac-12 champions would always play in the Rose Bowl, and in years when the Big Ten and/or the Pac-12 champion are among the top four teams, the remaining highest-ranked teams would fill the four “playoff” spots.

The national championship game would then be decided by the two highest-ranked teams after the four games are played. This would allow the Big Ten and Pac-12 to keep their longstanding, historic relationship with the Rose Bowl.

A BCS source confirmed to SN that Delany and Scott floated the idea to show loyalty to the Rose Bowl, the sport’s marquee game. But the days of the Rose Bowl’s influence on the postseason process are long gone.

Now the Rose and the three other major bowls (Fiesta, Sugar, Orange) are simply trying to remain part of the process, and not lose their status as critical components to the postseason. They will lobby BCS administrators this week to be part of a rotating system of hosting the three playoff games—instead of the three games being played at neutral sites and/or the semifinals being played on campus.

Those are just part of logistical hurdles—issues that are part of the fabric of the game and a key to its overwhelming success—that must be cleared for the straight four-team playoff to happen. Among the issues:

—Playing within the academic calendar, and as close as possible to New Year’s Day.

—Finding a way to incorporate the major bowls (Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, Orange).

—A formula for choosing the four “playoff” teams.

If the logistical hurdles can’t be cleared—and there’s no reason to think they can’t—the fallback plan is a straight Plus One: one game after all the bowl games to determine the national champion.

Bowl representatives are in Fort Lauderdale for the meetings, and will be part of the process for the first time—as will representatives for the four major television networks (ESPN/ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox).